Thoughts on Oregon solutions to global problems

March 21, 2009

Create a High School Study Abroad Programs and Spend $3 Million to Expand Mandarin Program

Dave Porter's Testimony to the Oregon House Education Committee on 3/20/09:

I urge you to create a High
School Study Abroad Program and to spend $3 million to expand Mandarin and
critical need foreign language programs for Oregon K-12 public school students.

The world’s economic and
geo-political arrangements are undergoing rapid and sustained change.

Consider that improved
transportation and communications together with the resulting global flow of
financial investment funds are bringing distance economies into competition
with each other, making the globe seem smaller and more interconnected; and

Consider that the global
banking firm Goldman Sachs estimated that by 2050 the combined emerging
economies of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) could exceed
the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world; and

Consider that during the next
thirty years, two to three billion people (out of a global population of 6.4
billion and growing) may join the global middle class, bringing substantial new
buying power into the global market; and

Consider that in the next few
decades roughly 80% of the world's economic growth will be found in emerging
markets; and

Consider that the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace estimated (2008) that the economy of China
will equal in size the US economy in 2035 and be twice as large in 2050.

This is the global economy that
today’s students, our next generations, will have to compete in. To be
successful they will need the skills and knowledge to innovate, design,
produce, buy and sell in these emerging markets around the globe. I know you
understand these international competitive pressures. And that you are working
to improve our education system and to raise the skills of our next
generations, with specific concerns for improving science and technology
education and for raising the educational achievement levels of underperforming
populations. But, for our next generations to survive and thrive in this future
global economy, more of them will need foreign language skills, and at
proficiency levels higher than we now usually produce. I urge you to invigorate
the study of foreign languages in Oregon’s public schools.The Center for Applied Second Language
Studies at the University of Oregon has developed a useful guide for needed
reforms in its “Oregon Roadmap to Language Excellence.” The legislation before
you today can be seen as a start, but only several first steps, on their
roadmap.

This invigoration of the study
of foreign languages in Oregon’s public schools needs your legislative
leadership. Do not think that Oregon’s educational establishment on its own
will make these changes. Do not wait for them to ask you. Educators need to hear
from you that you consider foreign language programs a priority, that Oregon’s
economic future is on the line, and, as I will get to, that the very lives of
our next generations may be at stake.

Our economy will thrive to the
extent that we can create new services and products and sell them in these
growing global markets. For a student, nothing sparks the generation of new
ideas like living in another culture and seeing the world and all its
arrangements from a fresh perspective. We need to strengthen this capacity for
innovation and the sense of adventure in our young. We need to send many more
of our high school and college students to study abroad. Recognize that there
are existing study abroad programs run by a variety of reputable,
well-established organization that cost in some cases less than the average
annual per students costs in our local school districts. So we could send many
more students to study abroad all over the world at no additional costs to the
state or to local school districts. In fact, most districts could save money by
sending more students abroad. We just need to create the legal and
administrative structure to do so. This is what HB 2719 begins to do.

While we need generally to
invigorate the study of foreign languages and send high school students to
study all over the globe,China, and its
official language Mandarin, deserve top priority in our efforts. China is the
biggest emerging market, and, for that economic reason alone, deserves special
priority. But China is much, much more. As the Center for Strategic and
International Studies and the Institute for International Economics put it:

No relationship matters more – for
better of for worse – in resolving the enduring challenges of our time:
maintaining stability among great powers, sustaining global economic growth,
stemming dangerous weapons proliferation, countering terrorism, and confronting
new transnational threats of infectious disease, environmental degradation,
international crime, and failing states.

But even that sweeping
statement does not capture China’s critical importance. China may become by the
end of the 21st century the globe’s dominant superpower. It could
become more powerful than the US. Our next generations may need to find a way
to live peacefully with that reality or to take them on militarily. Currently,
China spends about $70 billion on its military compared to $713 billion for the
US, or just 10% of what the US spends, and China has roughly two dozen nuclear
armed missiles. As a deterrent, their nuclear missiles are probably targeted at
US cities. Probably, one of those nuclear missiles is usually targeted at Portland.
This is not new, and should not raise any sudden alarms. Nuclear deterrence
around the globe has proven to be quite stable. But consider further, as
China’s economy grows this century to be more than twice the size of the US
economy, and as its investments in education and research produce a very
competitive high tech economy, they will have the capacity to considerably
upgrade their military. What then?

What worries me long term, and
what accounts for my passion on this Mandarin issue now, is the potential
trajectory of China’s rising military power over this century and how the US
may respond. University of California Berkeley Professor Brad DeLong wrote:

Think of it this way: Consider a world that contains
one country that is a true superpower. It is preeminent--economically,
technologically, politically, culturally, and militarily. But it lies at the
east edge of a vast ocean. And across the ocean is another country--a country
with more resources in the long-run, a country that looks likely to in the end
supplant the current superpower. What should the superpower's long-run national
security strategy be?

I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current
superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely
as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture--so that should the
emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent
possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same
civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.

Consider our own historical
experience, the US rose to global power as the British Empire declined. The
British mentored our rise to global power, and thus extended their influence on
the global system. We did come to their aid in two world wars. But in this case
both countries shared a common language, English, and much of the US political
and economic culture came from the British. Not so between the US and China. We
have very different languages and cultures. Yet, this is the big challenge for
our next generations. They simply are not now prepared. Today, many Chinese
students study English. Somewhere around one percent of Oregon’s public school
students are studying Mandarin. Some Chinese students come to Oregon, or to the
US more generally, to study. But very few Oregon students study abroad in
China. This situation is not in our long term national interest if we wish to
mentor China’s rise to power, avoid war, and to solve a whole range of global
problems.

In four funding bills, I am
proposing that Oregon spend $3 million during the 2009-11 biennium to begin to
develop and expand Mandarin programs. Given the strategic priority I give to
this effort I would recommend spending even more, but I recognize that we are
in tough economic times that put severe limits on what is possible. $3 million
would be only 0.05% of a $6 billion educational budget. That does not seem to
be too much for this priority.

Consider what a war with China
would cost. Let us as a strategic funding priority maximize the opportunities
for peace between our two countries. Big issues are in play.

Do recall that President
Lincoln had hard, turbulent times during the American Civil War. Recall that
President Lincoln and his Republican 37th Congress (1861-1863),
while engaged in the Civil War, passed five visionary bills: the Homestead Act,
the development of the transcontinental railroads, the creation of the system
of land-grant colleges, the creation the first, single paper currency for the
US, and the implementation of the first income tax. So I urge you in these hard
times to take inspiration from Lincoln, look to the future.